Cloud Servers Redefine the Modern Data Center

Two forms of server hosting have traditionally dominated the web hosting arena: shared hosting and dedicated server hosting. But in the last decade a new IT trend has swept the Internet unleashing a new hosting paradigm inside complex, international data centers. It’s name is cloud computing.
While the term cloud computing may have become something of a marketing buzzword, the virtualization technology that underlies it is very real and very powerful. First introduced in the 1960s by IBM, it has evolved to a level where just about every Fortune 500 Company in the world is using some variant of the cloud to make their IT processes more affordable and effective.

In many instances, these same enterprises are complementing their on-premise IT footprints with additional horsepower in the form of cloud servers present in web hosting data centers around the world.
While many argue over the exact definition of cloud computing in general and cloud servers in particular, the best way to understand this technology is to imagine taking seven web servers and combining them into one without losing any resources those end users may be relying upon. This ‘magical’ consolidation is achieved by virtualizing the hardware and software into ‘virtual machines’ that remain accessible to users over the Internet.
Web hosting companies have integrated this technology into their data centers in highly specialized cloud computing platforms known as Infrastructure-as-a-Service or IaaS. They have reduced their hardware and software footprint and passed these savings back to the customer using the cloud server model.
This means a company can now launch new operating systems and software configurations in an instant over the Internet using powerful web hosting cloud dashboards. Furthermore, they only pay for the resources they consume, which makes it an attractive alternative to the over-provisioning challenges posed by dedicated servers. It is also a more versatile and powerful option than a shared hosting platform where companies often face issues with resource allocation over seasonal shopping periods.
Cloud servers also feature auto-healing or self-healing characteristics which means that in the unlikely event a server were to fail, it would automatically restart or reboot without requiring any manual intervention.
This reflects the incredible automation accomplishments achieved by hosting data centers as they deploy new cloud technology inside IaaS environments. Just about every feature of website administration can now be accomplished inside cloud dashboards accessible over the Internet. This includes launching any operating system required by IT administrators and just about any software product required for business purposes including WordPress or e-commerce shopping carts.
Cloud servers are thus a major boon for businesses seeking to simplify their business processes and reduce their IT operational costs.